(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Pork Producers held several events in Sioux City and the surrounding area Wednesday. Aaron Juergens, of Sunburst Family Farms near Carroll, is the southwest director of the Iowa Pork Producers Association. He says the past 12 months have reminded them of the importance of community, and he says there are still challenging months ahead, and everyone must continue working together to keep people safe. Juergens also thanked Sioux City for supporting pig farmers.

The Pork Producers gave away 11-hundred pork loins in the parking lot of the Sioux City Explorers baseball team.”That’s approximately five-thousand-500 servings of pork. Each pound of pork is four servings of protein — so that’s nearly 22-thousand meals for this area’s residents,” Juergens says. He says they are also providing pork coupons at local grocery stores and pork appreciation baskets to some of the first responders.

The Food Bank of Siouxland and the Sunnybrook Church of Hope Center Pantry also received pork donations. Sioux City’s Seaboard Triumph pork plant is one of the largest pork processing plants in the country.